Easy cook dessert ideas please

[Kayelle]

I can't imagine a vat of chocolate pudding for 60 servings being made on Wed, the day before she leaves, being fit to serve on Sun given her limited refrigeration.

Just throwing out that comment to anyone not ignoring me

 

[Janet H]

I LOVE chocolate pudding but don;t think it's going to be practical with my limitations.

I'm committed to a cannoli adventure but living dangerously - I've never made them before. I think I can make the filling at home and it will keep in the fridge. The shells are coming from the bakery and I can toast nuts, chop chocolate etc before I leave.

I have some disposable pastry bags and the current plan is to make one kind of fillings and then dip the ends in a variety of things. Chocolate, pistachios, chopped cherries, maybe toasted coconut? I think assembly should go pretty quickly but this is entirely based on watching a few youtube videos.... am I nuts?

The filling recipe that I've found calls for 3 parts whole milk ricotta to one part mascarpone, powdered sugar and then a touch of cinnamon, some lemon zest, vanilla and a little almond extract or amaretto. This all gets whipped together. I can do that in advance and then use a wire whip to fluff it again on site.

Does this all sound reasonable?

 

[Kayelle]

There's no doubt it sounds reasonable for YOU to do Janet, and no you're not nuts, just an adventurist rock star of your group! Go girl, and take pictures of your adventure please!!

 

[bakechef]

I LOVE chocolate pudding but don;t think it's going to be practical with my limitations.

I'm committed to a cannoli adventure but living dangerously - I've never made them before. I think I can make the filling at home and it will keep in the fridge. The shells are coming from the bakery and I can toast nuts, chop chocolate etc before I leave.

I have some disposable pastry bags and the current plan is to make one kind of fillings and then dip the ends in a variety of things. Chocolate, pistachios, chopped cherries, maybe toasted coconut? I think assembly should go pretty quickly but this is entirely based on watching a few youtube videos.... am I nuts?

The filling recipe that I've found calls for 3 parts whole milk ricotta to one part mascarpone, powdered sugar and then a touch of cinnamon, some lemon zest, vanilla and a little almond extract or amaretto. This all gets whipped together. I can do that in advance and then use a wire whip to fluff it again on site.

Does this all sound reasonable?

That really sounds like a great idea. Minimal on site assembly but will look very impressive!

 

[Cooking Goddess]

In the event you decide to bail on the cannoli plan, I just thought of something WAY easy, not really impressive to look at, but once you start eating them you get dangerously close to scarfing them all down. Muddy Buddies. Met them decades ago when a Girl Scout Mom of mine brought them along to an outing. Addicting little Chex cereal pieces coated in chocolate, peanut butter, and powder sugar. If you want to go the easy route, Muddy Buddies are your friends.

Muddy Buddies

 

[Caslon]

Those round sponge cakes with indentations in them. Cans of whipped creme and some strawberries... "wa-la!"

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

NO BAKE CHOCOLATE OATMEAL COOKIES
Ingredients:
1 stick butter
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 cup milk
2 cups sugar
1 tbs. vanilla
1/2 cup peanut butter
3 cups rolled oats

Combine the butter, cocoa, milk, sugar, vanilla and peanut butter into a 2-quart saucepan. Bring to a gentle boil and cook for 1 minute. Add oats and mix well. Remove from heat.

Normally, you would drop by spoonfulls onto parchment paper and serve. For what you want, spread them into a buttered cake pan and serve as no-bake desert bars.

Here's an alternative no-bake cookie that has significant WOW-Factor, and is my favorite of the three recipes her, though all are very good..
Butterscotch and Bacon No-Bake Bars
Ingredients:
1 stick butter
1/2 cup evaporated milk
2 cups brown sugar
1 tbs. vanilla
1/2 lb. crisp bacon bits
3 cups rolled oats, or rolled barley (the barley is a healthier grain and is indistinguishable from rolled oats)
1/2 tsp. salt

Make the crispy bacon and crumble it. Set it aside.
Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the brown sugar, salt, and vanilla. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Add the milk, again stirring in completely. Add the remaining ingredients. Spread in a buttered cake pan and let cool, or drop by tbs. onto a parchment lined sheet pan.

Trust me, people go nuts over the flavors of butterscotch and bacon. No fridge necessary, and will keep for hours.

German-Chocolate No-Bake Cookies

This recipe was discovered by accident while I was making a German-Chocolate cake. I made the icing,and accideVanilla No-Bake Cookies

1 c Sugar
3 Egg yolks; slightly beaten
¼ cup milk
1 ts Vanilla
1/2 c Butter
1 cup rolled oats
1 1/3 c Coconut
1 cup Chopped pecans

Combine sugar, egg yolks, butter and vanilla. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat, add coconut and pecans. Cool and beat occasionally until spreading consistency.
ntly left out the required can of milk. As the icing was quickly hardening when I removed it from the heat, I dropped it like no-bake cookies onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. The cookies were delicious.

Hope that helps.

Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[Janet H]

Wow - there are a lot of great ideas here. Saving this thread for the future.

I've made the filling for the cannolis - it's yummy. Do you think it would freeze gracefully? I have a small freezer in the camper. It's packed in two small plastic containers. The primary ingredients are ricotta, mascarpone and sugar. Will the texture change if I freeze it?

 

[Aunt Bea]

Wow - there are a lot of great ideas here. Saving this thread for the future.

I've made the filling for the cannolis - it's yummy. Do you think it would freeze gracefully? I have a small freezer in the camper. It's packed in two small plastic containers. The primary ingredients are ricotta, mascarpone and sugar. Will the texture change if I freeze it?

When I have frozen ricotta and whipped cream together it breaks and becomes grainy or sandy. I would stay away from freezing it if at all possible.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

Wow - there are a lot of great ideas here. Saving this thread for the future...

Here's another option for "the future". They made [URL="http://abc.go.com/shows/the-chew/recipes/strawberry-lemonade-bars-carla-hall"]Strawberry-Lemonade Bars[/URL] on the Chew today, and they looked good. You can decide if they're sturdy enough to make-and-take and store for a couple of days.

 

[Addie]

Wow - there are a lot of great ideas here. Saving this thread for the future.

I've made the filling for the cannolis - it's yummy. Do you think it would freeze gracefully? I have a small freezer in the camper. It's packed in two small plastic containers. The primary ingredients are ricotta, mascarpone and sugar. Will the texture change if I freeze it?

Make a test run. Take a couple of tablespoons and freeze it. Then thaw it out.

 

[puffin3]

What about making a BIG batch of cookies? Ginger snaps come to mind. Make them at home. On the day of serving them whip up a big bowl of some sort of thick filling.....like they put between Oreo cookies. Just slather the filling on the bottom of one cookie and slick the bottom of another cookie on. You have homemade Oreos!
Make the cookies nice and big and a bit soft.
For ginger snap cookies I'd use a white filling with a white rum flavoring.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

"But Queen, they have no bread."
"Then let them eat chocolate-mayonaise cupcakes, with chocolate-Nutella frosting."

If this had been Marie Antoinette's reply, she would have been hailed as a savior of the people, rather that deposed and beheaded.

And if you serve your crowd this desert, you will receive your own accolades.

Nanaimo bars are a natural. See this for the recipe - Nanaimo Bars | City of Nanaimo

For a variation, you could substitute Nutella for the unsalted butter in the third layer, and give it your own name instead of Nanaimo, and maybe use chopped hazelnuts instead of chopped almonds.

Seeeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[Janet H]

Just an update - the cannoli went over well. The filling held well in the fridge and piped beautifully. Then we dipped the ends in chopped chocolate, pistachios or tucked a cherry into the end.

Here is the filling recipe which was AMAZING

30 ounces ricotta cheese - drained overnight in cheese cloth
8 ounces mascarpone cheese
1 tsp cinnamon
1/3 C (or to taste) confectioner's sugar
1/4 C granulated sugar
zest of 1/2 orange
zest of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp vanilla
3 drops almond extract

 

[GotGarlic]

Oooohh, those look fantastic, Janet! I see why they went over well

 

[Kayelle]

Well if the crowd was expecting "something awesome" they sure got it Janet! Take a bow girl!!

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Those look wonderful, Janet!

 

[Dawgluver]

Ooooooh, pretty!

 

[Cheryl J]

Looks great, Janet!

 

[Cooking Goddess]

Very nice job, Janet. You're group better have been impressed.